


An Atom Changed

by 35grams



Series: Earthling [1]
Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Earthborn (Mass Effect), Existential Crisis, Found Family, Memory Loss, Mutual Pining, Other, Slow Burn, Sole Survivor (Mass Effect), Vanguard (Mass Effect), four povs, me2 era, nb/genderless shepard
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-27
Updated: 2020-01-05
Packaged: 2021-02-25 20:01:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 14,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21981064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/35grams/pseuds/35grams
Summary: Resurrection has side effects.
Relationships: Thane Krios/Female Shepard, Thane Krios/Male Shepard, Thane Krios/Shepard
Series: Earthling [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1630042
Comments: 9
Kudos: 29





	1. Chapter 1

M

The commander acquires Archangel and the professor in half the time it takes Miranda, a senior Cerberus operative, to arrange a meeting with an intermediary to discuss the possibility of having a short chat with the Illusive Man. 

She allows herself, for the first time in two years, to relax. This had been her work in all that time. This, the commander, Shepard, had been everything. Every alarm. Every piece of good news. Of the bad. Her first thought upon waking, and her last before sleep. 

They had required no gentle instruction, no ten-step program. They had risen, stumbled once, and never again.

The Lazarus team had upgraded their implants and reinforced their body. Shepard is faster, deadlier. They are perfect.

She can relax for only so long. She has memorized every bit of footage of the old Shepard that ever existed. She has scrubbed through every frame, had every dodgy pixel restored. A few old details are lost. The way they adjusted their collar. The angle of their hand as it swept through their hair. Some are new. A cockier grin. Ears quicker to burn. 

She agonizes over them and a hundred others until she is sure they are not the products of lazy surgeons or shoddy hardware. Their commitment to opposing the Reapers, and by extension, the collectors, remains. The rest will need to slide into place. The rest is up to Shepard.

Finding that turian from their old team alive and sort-of well was killer luck. No one better to jog any memory that might have gotten lost in the two years it had all lain dormant. There's a thought. Remembering how to remember. 

They come to her, sometimes, just to chat. She gets over the initial swell of feeling in her chest at finally being able to talk with them, to be sure that it is them, to be sure that all of Miranda's efforts had not been for nothing. They are more thoughtful than their public bravado implies. She can't quite pin what bothers her occasionally about their line of thinking. 

Shepard is starting to ask the kind of questions Miranda tries not to ask herself. The kind that have no good answers.

  
G

  
Even without the N7 armplate in his scope, he would have recognized them anywhere. It's that bull-headed krogan march. Whether they're strolling into heavy fire or grabbing a coffee, it's the kind of walk that aims and fires. For the first time in two years, it's aimed at him.

Shepard doesn't recognize him right away. He catches the moment they do, the moment he opens his mouth and his voice pulls on a thread that keeps unraveling well after he returns from his date with a gunship missile. He's never seen such extended, enduring relief, before or since. Maybe his own looks like that. Wouldn't be surprised. Rumors are one thing. Watching Shepard - blasted-into-open-space, gone-for-good, move-the-hell-on Shepard - ram a charging Blood Pack captain out of his way is something else. 

The commander stops by the battery before heading back out for the professor. He's talking too much, but they want to hear everything. As much as he'll give them. An eternity on an operating table doesn't make a great story, they say, and they're half right. Stories tend to catch up to them, and Shepard is two years in debt.

J

Boss surprisingly hard to fuck with for someone who's been iced for two years. Coming back from the dead, whatever. They play like they believe everything out of Jack's mouth. Hanar have been on GQ's Galaxy's Hottest two years running. Alliance instituted a mandatory square dancing course. Mars is purple now. 

Not that Jack's current either. She's only been under for a few months this time, but it's enough for routes to change, for contacts to disappear. Guess they're both starting over.

Few hours after her first night on the ship, the Cerberus bitch radios to tell her to get ready. If they want to put her through their security checklist bullshit, they can get her themselves. But that isn't it. Turns out she's coming with the boss and that turian smartass to look for some krogan. Just like that. No implant inhibitors. No dumbass warnings. No tests. Lawson doesn't sound thrilled, so it's all the motivation she needs to get her ass out of the hole. 

Not the worst ship to bounce on. Boss and the krogan lab rat they find knock heads in cargo now and then. The crashing and hard thuds piss her off, but every time she gets out of the hole to bitch, they rope her in somehow. Fine. Decent exercise.

She'd hit the commander hard enough to need the doc to run tests and all she'd get for it is smiles and questions about her technique _._ Bop the krogan an ounce too hard or bring up test tubes one time and Jack is ordered back in the hole faster than she understands why. Boss even makes her apologize.

M

Odd that things have started to go missing around the time they bring in the delinquent. Miranda's things, namely.

None of her business why the commander's soft on that bit of refuse, though it hasn't affected their other duties nor Miranda's aside from these petty annoyances. Soft isn't the word either, though Miranda's not pressed to find a better one. Curiosity, maybe. 

The two aren't entirely different, despite how it pains her to think it. Shepard normally plays the part of a biotic homing laser on the field, but absent suitable targets or room to maneuver, they switch to the exact kind of scorched-earth biotic ground-pounding Jack is such a fan of. 

The commander is the picture of geniality when they need to be, but there’s an ease about them with Jack. 

Miranda sees and hears all. As they mark off their dossiers, she makes a note of other details that don't show up in documentaries or security footage. A thread of violence woven into an otherwise upstanding and handsome bit of fabric. It feels older than the others. Sometimes, when a civilian is threatened or a teammate terribly hurt, it is more like a live wire.


	2. Chapter 2

J

Boss comes by now and then. She's not sure why. They ask shit people don't usually ask without looking like jerkoffs when they get the answer. Commander good-deeds actually laughs when Jack tells her how she cratered a Hanar moon. Doesn't sound forced either. Makes a face when she gets into the gory shit, but so would Jack. Before she can figure out what the hell they really want, they're gone. Why not. As bosses go, bailing even before Jack thinks to tell them to fuck off is a perk.

She hasn't been called up since she helped them grab tube boy, but Joker tells her that most of the shit since then has been walking, talking, and kissing scaly Council ass, so she isn't bothered. Still, can't blame her for wanting more. Shepard's a maniac on the ground. Had this batshit dance with the turian where the boss charges like, ten mercs at once while the turian cleans up from behind. Jack had to work for it if she wanted to knock some heads of her own. It's a new feeling.

She's dealing for her and Grandpa One-Eye while tube boy watches when she remembers that face the boss makes. Not enough to piss her off, but it's getting there. A face like they're with an old pal. Some buddy they used to know. She doesn't like it. Jack gets shit from gramps for missing a card and gets to knock him around for it while the krogan referees. Good kid. 

G

If he still doubted that this Shepard was the genuine article, their performance after Horizon would have shot it down for good. Chatting up everyone in sight, personally running through provisions requests and placing orders, grabbing a soldering gun and going to town on some lazy join in the lift. Almost Virmire levels of _Everything Is Fine, Really, Back To Work._ Maybe it makes sense. Alenko gone and now Ash, in her way. 

He feigns lethal thirst and steers them to the bar on the observation deck. Before he can think of how to start, Kasumi slips in, drinks them both under the table, courteously leaves a few painkillers on the counter, and heads out to introduce Grunt to Kandinsky.

He isn't sure what was said or done that night, but the commander finally eases up on solo maintenance repairs in the morning.

M

Miranda thought she would need to power through asking the commander for help on a personal matter, but Shepard agrees as easily as if she'd asked them to pick up a coffee from the mess if they happened to pass through. She did just that, once, just to have a bit of fun, and now the commander doesn't set foot in her office without one, or a few biscuits she’d found on some station or other that just happen to be Miranda's favorite. 

She is reminded not for the first time of how seamless the balance of power between them has been aboard the ship. Miranda had prepared for every eventuality, every manner of overreach or resistance or neglect. She shouldn’t have bothered. Shepard seeks Miranda’s advice often and her authority aboard is unquestioned when the commander is in the field. In return, Miranda tempers the urge to comment on their field work until it disappears on its own. Until she trusts them to get it done. They simply work. 

Shepard makes it all so easy. Until they don’t.

Horizon is ringing in all their ears. In some more than others, and in more ways than one. Shepard must be deafened, going by the mission reports, especially from Vakarian and Solus. Having accompanied them to free the colony, they paint a brighter picture of Shepard’s state than they realize, simply by which identical details they either cleverly edited or rendered in elaborate, sterile detail. Vakarian blows by the commander's unexpected reunion with their former gunnery chief as an unexciting footnote while the professor innocently notes minute but uncharacteristic changes in the commander's posture and syntax.

They’re in sight of Nos Astra when the commander comes to her and asks, not for the first time, about the Lazarus project. 

“Just as you were, Shepard,” Miranda confirms. “Not an atom changed. I made sure of it.”

“You’re sure?” Shepard asks.

Miranda straightens in her chair. “I am,” she says, projecting as much confidence and reassurance as she can without letting on that this line of questioning troubles her more than the prospect of slaying three rival merc groups for a single turian.

She lets Shepard think for an excruciatingly long second despite Miranda’s growing alarm. As they open their mouth to speak, the station master’s demand for credentials floods the ship's PA system, and the commander leaves for the bridge. 

Not long before they arrive at the docks, reports arrive that an evacuation has begun at the Dantius towers.

T

Three incendiary-round shotguns hunt him from the courtyard of one building to the penthouse of another. Katana, Evis, Claymore. One krogan. Two biotics. All berserkers, one surely a charger. He couldn’t have prayed for more noise. 

Nor for more compelling hunters. A krogan with cold, intelligent eyes and effortlessly regal posture. A human biotic whose painted flesh should have melted around her industrial-grade implants fifty stories ago. They flank the most curious of them. A resurrected Reaper-killer chasing a dying man.


	3. Chapter 3

J

She's had fun before, but this was something else. Something new. Wasn't hot on some ugly tower until the boss’ only orders were to make some noise. She can do that. Races tube boy, dents walls, counts knockouts. Itches whenever the boss stops to chat with salarian bean counters about whatever the fuck. She forgot why they were here. She knew why she was here. Make some fucking noise.

Boss tightens the leash when they reach the top. Not too obvious. An extra command or two per level, then tight as shit when the wind picks up on the roof. Jack grinds her teeth at it, but she gets it. There weren't enough to sate her down below, but now there are too many. These Eclipse bitches have drones, turrets, rockets. 

Shockwaves ripple through them all, contort the steel at their feet and hurl them into the wind's thrashing maw. Her's and Shepard's, together. They summon the pulses, pull back for a breather while the krogan cleans house, and do it again, and again, and again. It works. It feels good. 

Jack could've done it alone. Maybe not so fast, so clean. Shepard claps her on the shoulder and she doesn't mind it.

T

He doesn't have the opportunity to admire the ship and its myriad hidden cameras and listening devices for long before Ms. Lawson summons him for his expertise in navigating the native Eclipse standing between the commander and a promise to a Justicar. He suspects the commander is more eager to see him at work than to listen to the finer points of Eclipse drone maintenance procedure. The feeling is mutual.

He expects fire and chaos. The mindless, unfeeling train of destruction that had just raced him to his last mark. He doesn't get it.

Their third on this job is a different human, light on her feet and quick with her hands. She cloaks before herding Eclipse mercs into oblivious, paranoid clusters, and slips away before the commander charges into them all at once. She and Thane are then free to clean up at their leisure. In one encounter after another, Eclipse officers with safeties off could not fire a single shot.

His first impression of the commander had been hasty. He understands just how hasty when they go so far as to angle and arc their charges off of ledges and walls - at immense physical expense, he knew - to avoid harming consoles and mobile tech lest the name they search for lives in one of them. Their tactical commands, too, are prescient, giving Ms. Goto and himself direct orders or free reign exactly when the moment warrants one or the other. They are older, wiser than they want their enemies - and perhaps their friends - to know.

The commander had, then, chosen their hardest, loudest bruisers for the Dantius run - for him - on purpose. 

Their present search is a nearly perfect operation. They cross the compound in less than an hour, but are pinned down by the Eclipse captain. The very skills the commander required of he and Goto to slip in and out of this place like silk are useless under sustained, heavy fire. He anticipates more patient maneuvers, prepares to hold their position for hours. 

Biotics warble beside him. He hasn’t finished arriving at his assumptions before the commander breaks cover, charges through hellfire and snaps the captain's neck where she stands. When he and Goto break through the acrid smoke and crimson dust to join them, the entire squadron already moans and begs at their feet.

The commander searches the Eclipse captain's body for the name they need in return for the Justicar's services. He searches the commander's body for wounds in turn. A single lucky bullet would have put an end to them, and to this entire operation. A cloud of Minagen X3 remains. She must have hurled it at them. Her last act. It cascades from the commander's armor, flows from their closely-cropped hair. Red on red on red. They smile guiltily at Kasumi's indignant shock at their charge.

Thane puts distance between himself and the Minagen clouds until the pounding in his head lessens. He eyes the commander again. Surely, they cannot be unaffected, yet they lead the way with clear eyes and sure feet.

On the way out of the now-silent compound, the commander drops to one knee. Goto rushes forward as EDI confirms his suspicions. Massive overdose. He struggles to rein in his own spiking biotics - he had a good few lungfuls of it himself and his proximity to the commander's destablizing biotic fields does not help.

He drops beside them and lets his hands hover over their temples, the site of their implant sensors, to indicate his intent. Their hands rise to grip his wrists, hard. Their eyes swim, unfocused, but they are lucid enough to shake their head. 

He tries to explain. He can siphon away enough energy from their fields to get them on their feet and off to proper care. His voice is lost to a deafening biotic hum. He has less than a second to wrap himself in a protective barrier before the commander pulls away to charge into a nearby reinforced wall with enough force to ripple straight through it, and through two more beyond. Sunlight spills into his eyes.

"Shortcut," the commander calls to them. More than one way to purge excess biotics, he supposes.

M

Miranda is about to set off after her sister on her own when the commander at last returns with the Justicar. There is a weariness about them, and catastrophically dense biotic fields that should not go unexamined, but Miranda is distracted. Selfish. If the commander says they will help, then she will trust them to help. 

The whole ordeal takes twenty minutes, barely more. The small army of Eclipse mercs hired to stand between Miranda and her sister may as well have never existed. 

Once it truly, genuinely settles in her heart that Oriana is safe again, Miranda has another look at the prior field report. She recalls too, how certain mercs fled before they had even entered a room as they fought their way to Oriana. Engineers, whose instruments must have registered the commander from a dozen floors down. As she reads, she understands why.

After verifying with Goto and Krios in person, she summons the subject of her ire. The ire in question is not alleviated by the fresh scars lacing the commander's face and the breathtakingly dense fields still radiating from their body. Simply standing in their presence tests her limbs and summons a migraine.

Shepard listens to her concerns with a perfectly composed look of understanding that Miranda susses out as ironic too late for her dignity to remain unharmed. She sighs harshly. She doesn't like playing the nag any more than Shepard likes hearing it, but that charge had been unnecessary. They had a pair of expert spooks at their side: surely they could have been of more use. 

"You're an important investment," she wraps up, sure that they’ll laugh about her with that turian the second they’re out. "For Cerberus. Humanity. Me. One I don't like to see hobbling back from a firefight because they were too impatient to-"

Shepard winces as the fields surrounding them warble in reaction to a shift in the ship's mass effect core. Biotics can sense these unobtrusive little changes in pressure, but rarely do they hurt, even rarer when the shift is so subtle. A bead of blood wells in one of the cuts and races down their cheek.

“This is what I mean,” Miranda grouses as she finds a tissue and blots the bead before it stains the commander's collar. They sit, still and yielding, as Miranda blots at the others. “If anyone else had done something so stupid, they would have-“

“Died.”

“Surely.”

They tolerate Miranda moving their chin to blot another. “I would have.”

Miranda’s hands fall away, slowly.

“Before,” Shepard adds. They meet her eye. “But not now.” They smile unconvincingly. “Not an atom, right?”

“Now, wait a second-I...” Infuriatingly, Shepard does wait patiently while Miranda parrots old lines about authenticity, about agency and autonomy and getting them right back to where they were before the vacuum of space claimed them and it isn't working, she knows it isn't working. She’s been had.

Shepard had raced through the MX3 on purpose. They had already suspected. Now they have proof.

Shepard politely requests documentation of the changes - enhancements, Miranda meekly insists - whose integration had been approved by Miranda. And with that same placidly guarded look on their face, thanks her and leaves.

Miranda sinks to her seat and throws her head in her hands. It had been so easy to say yes. So easy to decide for another when they could not say no. Easy to suggest additions even more invasive, those even the Illusive Man had vetoed. Her father must have felt like that when he weighed her genetic destiny, picked her fate apart at his whim. Self-congratulatory. Powerful. Important. Would she even feel this crest of shame were Shepard as vulnerable to her, as needy and subservient, as she had once been to him? Is it even shame at her actions she is feeling, or at being caught?

She wishes they would yell. Lecture her, throw blame, anything. Everything Miranda wishes she could have done to him. Everything Miranda knows he, and now she, deserves. She is him. She is just like him.

  
  



	4. Chapter 4

T

When he disconnects the last of the listening devices in Life Support, the floor shudders faintly. As he acquaints himself with the yeoman, he feels it again. He meant to familiarize himself with the rest of the ship anyway, and he may as well start with this odd pounding.

He trails it to the cargo hold. The lift doors open, and he has his answer.

A good few of the crew have already made their way down here for the show. He finds a secluded spot for himself and watches the painted biotic from earlier - Jack, he surmises from the excited betting - trade biotic lashes with the commander. Mr. Taylor referees while the ship's doctor stands by with mobile equipment and the Justicar leans languidly against a support beam. 

On what few ships he's voyaged on, the captain or presiding commander normally maintains a healthy distance from their crew. Yet this one waves and blows kisses for the engineers to catch in between assaulting a teammate with enough force to flatten a krogan were she not equally burdened with the biotic potential of thirty asari. In a few minutes, Jack taps out for a drink and trades places with the Justicar. The commander grabs little but a breath in between opponents. Taylor briefly taps in to, like the other two, help the commander thin their latent biotic field. 

Thane has his fill and leaves to examine the rest of the ship with an enduring impression that this contract will not be like the others.

He does not anticipate an audience with the commander so soon, but not an hour passes since the rumblings ended before they stand before him, limbs loose with exertion and fields considerably dampened. He greets them and heads off any loose ends. His illness will be of no concern before the conclusion of their mission. He is ready and able. No other assignments occupy him. Dantius had been the last. The commander listens patiently, sweeps an eye over his equipment, and helps themself to a seat opposite.

They ask about Kepral's. Then, about Rakhana. The Primacy. The Compact. He is too surprised to do much else but satisfy their curiosity. He keeps it brief, which only invites more questions. Not invasive or interrogatory. Simply unusual, for a commander to ask. Unusual, for him, to answer.

When he mentions the drell's perfect memory in passing, something like fear washes over their face and disappears as soon as it came. A similar, far less noticeable one had crossed them at the mention of Rakhana's remaining poor. He stops theorizing about the commander's interest and starts to harbor his own. They are not as subtle as they think. 

"Should've been a painter with eyes like that," they say when he recalls the tarnished ceremonial armor of a past mark. "Could use one to catch my good side."

"Among others," he dares.

Their brows rise, but they are amused.

"I'm curious, commander," he chances again. "I witnessed you arc and curve your charges as natural as breathing. Yet you bludgeoned through the Minagen. On purpose?"

Their grin is too quick, too easy. "Thought Jack could use the entertainment. Unless you're offering to tap in...?"

He tempers a smile. "No, commander."

When they leave, he recalls that look of theirs, at the mention of his species' eidetic memory. No, fear isn't right. Dread, maybe. As he examines the memory, he catches their loose limbs stiffen, their easy eyes hardening. Dread isn't it, either. It is nothing that can be named easily.

M

They keep doing it. Testing themself, testing Miranda. When they locate a motionless Collector ship, she accompanies them aboard and witnesses what field reports only begin to describe. They are everywhere at once. They charge through enemy and friendly fire alike. By the time the ship powers back up and forces them all to flee, they'd holstered their shotgun and had begun to introduce Collector skulls to the hard ground with their bare hands. 

All her complaints languish on her tongue. She is in no position to voice them, not after such a breech of trust. She shouldn't have lied to them. She is so used to lying.

J

Boss' biotics are back to normal in a week or two. Sucks. With that MX3, they could almost out-pound her. Almost. 

Shit must've fucked with their appetite. Sometimes, they'd eat together after a match - her place or theirs. Jack railed against stepping foot in the cabin til they bribed her with control over the music. Shepard would eat like they've been starving for days. Jack knows what that looks like.

Twice, they gorged and spent an hour going over strat or just shooting the shit with her when the boss gets up to eat, again. 

Jack scoffs. "Cerberus stash a black hole in your gut or what?"

They turn and ask her what she means.

"Shepard, we just ate."

They look like they're about to argue when they spot trays nearby. Face screws up like they can't tell how they got there.

"Huh," they say. "Guess we did."

T

The commander visits him again. 

They don't fish for state secrets or network gossip. They simply talk with him, about everything and nothing. Before he understands that he's done it, he's shared more of himself than he thought he ever would to a superior. To anyone at all. Thoughts and impressions he couldn't imagine anyone caring very much about from a hired gun. The amusing limp of his former hanar handler. The best asari dumplings on Nos Astra. The first time he felt sea salt on his skin. Useless nonsense.

Yet they return. They recall some throwaway thought of his from weeks before that Thane himself barely remembers. They tease him mercilessly for drawing the, in their words, appreciative eye of every sentient being on the ship. He returns fire with a few vivid recollections of where civilian, merc, and crew eyes alike typically wander when their own back is turned. They agree to a ceasefire.

He is too old to believe this attention is not founded in suspicion. He is a career assassin, and their head commands the greatest collective bounty in the known galaxy. Yet overhearing this or that navigator or engineer confide in one another their surprise at serving with so attentive a commander puts that tension - with time - to rest. It is not human-centric either. Vakarian is at their side in nearly every field op, each shore leave. They visit the Justicar for hours at a time, train the krogan personally, and don't leave the quarian's side until they've successfully flustered her with some obscene human anecdote. 

He struggles to maintain distance. He's never had to, before. 

With each visit, they also change. All their indulgent bravado gives way to a vulnerable introspection of a kind they must take great pains to hide. Of a kind that, shared with the wrong person or at the wrong time, would hurt them dearly. Their reputation. Their physical safety. Their soul. They mull over the ethics of their semi-consensual partnership with Cerberus. Their destruction, on Virmire, of a cure to the galaxy's most infamous genetic experiment. The certainty that they could have stopped Sovereign sooner if only they had been stronger and faster. Better. If only they had been then what they are now.

It humbles him to be their ear. Some of their musings are clumsy and uncoordinated, as if they have never been voiced before.


	5. Chapter 5

G

He's getting used to being part of a team again. Would’ve chafed under anyone's command but Shepard’s. They just get it. Always have.

Something is different, though. He might not have picked up on it had he not had his own command, had he not understood firsthand what it means to helm a team as talented as it is temperamental. What it means to lead it into the unknown. Shepard is making the kind of mistake they never made on the old Normandy.

"Guess what?" he says when they stop by the forward battery. "I'm a clairvoyant now. Hold the applause." 

Shepard shoulders their way to the battery console and pulls up the weekly report for review. "Sure, unless you're about to tell me we trounce the Reapers via dance-off."

"An eating contest, actually, but that's beside the point." He eyes the newest layer of scars and burns on their face and hands as they navigate the console. "My newfound talent compels me to tell you that at current levels of ramming-into-people, you will be reduced to a smoldering stub in about a month."

Shepard scrolls through power usage data on their upgraded guns, untroubled. "Again? I'm sure Miranda has a spare me lying around."

"Hilarious. Unfortunately, this is the part where I get all sincere-"

"Oh, no-"

"-and suggest that you let your small army of weirdos headbutt a collector once in a while. You know, for exercise."

"I, for one, think you look great."

"Much appreciated. But-"

"Yeah, yeah. Long way to request more field work."

Garrus stalks off to collect his patience. "I mean it, Shepard. Before..."

Shepard's hands still. When Garrus doesn't go on, they turn and give him their full attention. "Before...?"

"Don't get me wrong, you were always part krogan. But even you, then, didn't take so many risks. You were-"

"Human."

Garrus opens his mouth before he fully processes that one, and stills when he does.

Shepard laughs. "Sorry. Weird thing to say." 

They leave before Garrus can cobble together the first of many questions.

M

"We didn't, I don't know, throw salarian sequences in there for kicks," Miranda says. "Everything in that data I gave you is the full truth. If there is anything more, then I haven't seen it." 

Shepard chews on that thought as Miranda rises from behind her desk. The commander has gone through the data. They returned to her for assurances. Sincere assurances, this time. Miranda can do that.

"Lot of steel in there," they say, off-hand. "More than I thought."

"Your turian friend? Half his face was reinforced with metal plating on this very deck. Tali'Zorah lives in a climate controlled suit, Massani is at least half machine, and the professor - you don't want to know. Are they lesser for it?"

They do not pursue this line, but Miranda knows they are not convinced.

"Shepard. I shouldn't have lied to you. I won't excuse what I did. But you are who you've always been where it counts. You've had extensive synthetic implants and replacements, but for damn good reason. All these delicate capillaries and nerves of ours weren't designed for the vacuum of space. They weren't designed for..." 

"Reapers," they say, and finally, faintly, there's a smile. 

T

The Normandy intercepts the occasional distress beacon. He is summoned now and again to join the commander's ground team and investigate them. They are usually clean, quick ordeals.

He is called in to the debriefing room alone after one of them.

Mr. Taylor brings up his suit recording of one of their encounters. In it, the commander charges hostile Blue Suns and knocks out the entire squadron with a larger than normal burst. Thane's hands appear in the shot, moving to detonate the fields surrounding them a moment before impact.

"Were you ordered to detonate the commander's charge?"

"I had been given license to resolve the conflict in whichever way I judged necessary."

"This is your idea of necessary?" Taylor presses. "Endangering your commander's-"

The commander walks in with Ms. Lawson at her heels.

"Shepard," Lawson says, "we really insist on conducting this separately-"

"So that's what that was," Shepard says at the looping recording. They try, badly, not to laugh.

"Commander," Taylor starts, "we were just about to get to the bottom of-"

Shepard treats Thane to a hearty slap on the shoulder.

"Shepard, that was-" Lawson starts.

"If the next words out of your mouth aren't "tight as fuck", I don't want to hear it."

Ms. Lawson grips the table a touch harder than needed and dismisses him. Thane steps outside and overhears their fruitless attempts at convincing the commander otherwise for a few moments before returning to his quarters with a lighter step.

G

They restock on Omega during a brief shore leave. Garrus is gnawing at his mouth at the prospect of deciding between two equally good rifle stocks when Shepard wanders off in the corner of his eye. He pays for one at random and catches up, eyeing every dark corner they pass, every decent vantage point. Tailing Shepard on any day was an ordeal, but with them in plainclothes? He'd rather clip his talons.

"Remind me why-"

"Favor for Samara," they say.

"Didn't think Justicars needed favors."

"This one does. You do."

"Yeah, fine. Just wish you wouldn't show off. You know you turned three different merc nests upside down last time we were here?"

"Really? Why's that?"

He growls. Shepard loops a conciliatory arm through his and walks him back to the ship. They duck away from falling debris as a delivery cruiser screeches against another overhead.

"You remember the geth?" Shepard asks suddenly.

"I try not to."

"They learn fast. Can rebuild and repair their own. Improve. Adapt. But all this time, and they're still the image of their creators. Organics. They don't have to be. But they are."

"Pretty sure you want Tali for this one."

"No, wait. They can change and adapt, but they're at war, so they adapt for war. Hard steel is preferable to flesh...at the moment. But if, by some miracle, the war ends and they still exist...if they finally know peace..."

"Would they go for some choice turian fringe implants if they had enough processing power freed up to appreciate style? Why not."

"Exactly. Would they adapt with organic material the way we do with machines?"

Garrus slows to a stop and unlinks their arms. "I'm starting to think this isn't about the geth."

Shepard punches his shoulder gamely and sets off. "Just rambling. Let's go."

"Oh no," he says, catching up. "Not that move again." He takes their shoulder in his hand and slows their breakneck pace. They've reached the docks.

"What's with the runaround lately? Shepard, I know we don't swap diaries or paint each other's nails, but you know that if there's something-" 

"I'd kill to paint your nails."

"Likewise. Just-" He lets them go. "Say Cerberus replaced every inch of you. Everything but that sparkling personality."

Shepard's eyes wander around the docks, but the line in their brow betrays how closely they're paying attention. Garrus has also been paying attention. He may have tapped his contacts for the name of some Palaven art dealer Goto's been angling for in return for her help in clocking why Shepard's been icier than usual with Lawson at around the same time they started stealing his shots.

"You'd still be Shepard. And I'd still be here."

They hum thoughtfully. "Even if I chirped like the geth?"

"You kidding? You'd be a hit at parties."

T

Thane meets a few old friends on Omega, tracks down a rare barrel mod, and heads back. Near Afterlife, he finds Shepard lounging haphazardly atop a stone barrier separating the walkway from a dizzyingly high fall. Not an inch of armor. He catches at least seven Omegans with five merc colors between them in crowds, opposite buildings, or rooftops either observing, closing in, or lining up shots.

His hand is resting on the pistol in his jacket as he walks in front of two lines of sight, and inconveniences a third. As he approaches, he senses the density of the quintuple biotic barrier responsible for the serene, unbothered look on their face.

"Cruel to tease them like this," he says.

"Tease who?" they ask innocently, one leg tucked under them while the other hangs over a bottomless chasm. 

Thane leans against the stone, obstructing two more. 

"I shouldn't have wondered how you handled Eclipse so well at Dantius. You had plenty of practice eliminating the superior officer of every merc looking our way."

"Let em look. I waved hello, but they're pretty shy. No one waved back."

"You are waiting for Samara, I take it."

"Yeah."

He lowers his voice. "Take care, Shepard."

Shepard eyes him. "How much do you know?"

"Only that you plan to play red meat to a serial killer."

"Kid's stuff," Shepard says, and Thane has known them long enough to appreciate the function of their brand of cavalier bravado. It reassures the listener. Lately, he suspects it reassures the speaker.

G

Garrus folds his rifle and leaves his perch when the drell finally moves away from Shepard. He'd never hear the end of it if Shepard knew, which is why they don't. 

The two Cerberus lackies, he knows Shepard could take. Grunt is impressionable, the professor is transparent, and Massani's not stupid. Kasumi would sooner steal the boots off their feet. He'd kept an eye on Jack for a hot week and then Samara, but both are safely too far inside their own heads to have been paid to take Shepard's.

This guy, though.


	6. Chapter 6

J

EDI tells her when Shepard's back with that asari. Took them long enough. 

She wants to spar. Hasn't had the chance since the MX3 wore off. Jack tells EDI to ask Shepard for a time. She's blown off. Decompressing or something. Hasn't heard that one before, not from Shepard. Fine, she can wait.

They're on route to the Citadel when Jack tries again. It's been a full day. Boss never needed more than an hour to take a shower and talk up everyone in sight from the helm on down.

But they're still in their cabin. Reports or whatever. A little prying, and EDI spills that they never left. Had Kells bring up meals. The fuck. 

She's been pacing the length of the hole for the past half hour thinking about this shit. Fine, fuck them. She grabs Grunt and they have at it for an hour, but it's not enough. It's funny watching him squirm in the air, but she needs more than a giggle. She gets EDI to tap the asari and makes up some sob story about how lonely she is, though she doubts some centuries' old broad would buy it. She's thinking up a way to convince Taylor to let her toss him around when EDI tells her that the crone said yes. 

The asari comes to the cargo hold wearing black. Jack waves her over to the mats and primes herself for some line about honor or goddesses or something. Nothing. She just asks Jack if she's ready, and they fight.

Jack doesn't know how long she lasts until she cries uncle. The asari offers a hand that she waves off. She thinks she'll stay right here, starfished on the mat and trying to remember how to breathe. Every muscle is shot. She's bruised from head to ass. When she stumbles to her feet, her legs barely hold her.

The asari does her dignity a solid by also catching her breath with some effort. She towels off with a fresh spare from a nearby locker and throws one to Jack.

"Thank you, Jack," she says before turning to leave. "I think I needed this."

Jack watches her go for a moment before a cog lurches forward in her head. Shepard had come back with her.

"Hey, what...what's with the boss?"

Samara stops, but she doesn't turn.

"The commander swears to me that no harm came to them."

"I asked you, not them."

T

This time, it is he who requests Shepard's ear. They come, and they are a touch distracted, but he doesn't need long. They are on route to the Citadel. He has business there. He requests time to pursue it.

Something must have shown on his face. Shepard encourages him to divulge that the business involves his estranged son, and the pursuit, to prevent him from making a life-altering mistake.

"We'll go together." Shepard says. 

"If there isn't time-"

"There's time."

G

Some tourists who'd stood in line at customs when they passed by were still there when they left. That's how long it took them to find Fade. It's how long it took them to put Sidonis in the ground. Time moves differently around Shepard. 

They've just cleared C-SEC when Krios radios from the other side about a lead on his kid. Shepard tears right back. He would've tailed had he not heard Bailey confirm the story.

Garrus gets back to the ship and drafts a letter to the families of his old team. He's done it before, but it never felt right. He'd look for the right words for hours. This time, they just come. 

Tali finds him and gives him the kind of hug that reminds him she's been hauling geth parts for the better part of a year. Lawson spots him on the way to her office and gives him a small nod, and he even thinks about forgiving her for snooping on them. 

Something eats at him. Someone's not here.

Shepard's been doing more than a few favors recently, and not the fun kind. Sure, it's not their sister, not their father, not their daughter, but he can't imagine it doesn't wear on them. Maybe it doesn't. They never knew their own, the way they tell it. He tried, once, to imagine the brick shithouse in front of him as some starving street rat. It's a tough sell.

He'd been too focused on his mark to pay attention before, but he does now. Whispers here and there that the commander's not coming around as often since they left Omega, and that when they do, they're curt or cold. Maybe he'd taken his eye off that Justicar too soon.

T

They wait for Kolyat's oblivious mark to finish his endless speeches from opposite ends of the walkway.

"You let Vakarian take the shot," Thane says into his earpiece.

The commander does not answer for a time. The mark shakes hands with his audience.

"Wondered what I would do," they finally say. "Sidonis was lucky. He didn't suffer."

Thane bids images of begging, bleeding batarian slavers from his mind. Groveling beneath his heel. 

"Would you have made him suffer?"

They do not answer. 

G

"Fuck. Sorry, Garrus."

Shepard doesn't forget things often, but when they do, you'd think someone died. Well.

"You say you care and yet can't name the model of a rifle I had three years ago? For shame. Come on, Shepard, I don't remember what I ate last night."

"Same thing you eat every night."

"Not true. I tried the gumbo today."

They have that stupid look on their face for a moment, the one where they want to say something less than commanderly but hold off as if he's some green who'll wet his pants without lockstep authority. 

He's not being fair. He made that exact same face when he had command, damn it. It's like looking in a mirror, scars and all.

T

He tells Shepard about Irikah. Blocking his shot. Waking him from a life of mindless, meaningless slaughter. Marrying him. Having his son. Dying for him.

There's no end to how strange it feels to speak of his past life. When he says so, Shepard smiles wryly as he knew they would. 

He wants to ask about their own family, has for some time, but he stays his tongue. They have not only never mentioned any but more than once gone out of their way to redirect conversations from the very concept. Difficult, when half the field team requests assistance with a daughter or a father or a son, but they make it work.

The shadow that has hung over them since Omega remains. They don't mention what occurred then, and it isn't his place to ask. Yet it plagues him that that they don't. He’s grown used to them being able to confide in him and guards that honor almost jealously. Is it merely to ingratiate himself to the boss? No. He can't pretend to be so cynical anymore. He cares for them. His soul is lighter in their company. The world is, for the first time in many years, more vibrant than his memories. 

He cannot allow himself to grow accustomed to this feeling. Not again. But they are not Irikah.

She saved lives. Shepard claims them. She was killed. Shepard is untouchable. Inferno made flesh. When they are not slaying one kind of reaper, they are cheating another. 

He knows he is being unfair. They have shared so much already. Too much, maybe. He struggles to reconcile how Shepard could entrust him, a person with perfect recall, to their most private thoughts. He could be captured, forced to spill. He asks them as much, once.

Shepard's brow furrowed, then. They waited as if sure he would say something more. When he didn't, they sat back and laughed at themself, as if they'd just caught a joke at their expense. 

"No one can catch you."


	7. Chapter 7

M

Shepard comes back to her office. Just to talk. Miranda hopes her relief isn't too obvious, but she may have made a too-pleased noise at the sight of those Thessian-style scones. 

Their talks are light and procedural at first, like they were when Shepard first woke. The state of the ship. Local gossip. Thoughts on the new prime minister of somewhere or other. Shepard catches her one day after she sends Oriana a pre-recorded message, a few days before they arrive at Omega. It's heavy on her mind as they chat, and Shepard notices, asks.

"I just...you've done this thing for me, Shepard. For much of the field crew. Set our minds and hearts at ease. Family can be...well." 

"Can't have a distracted team."

She snorts. "You're an excellent liar when you want to be. But when you don't..."

Shepard shrugs in the armchair opposite her, feigning ignorance with that small, inscrutable smile. 

"Anyway," they say, "the biotic dampeners we just got for the hold should be enough to-"

"Shepard, I can't help but..." Miranda tugs at a lock of her hair out of frustration. She doesn't struggle with her words often. "If there's anything I or one of us can do to return the...to do for you what you've done for us, I hope you'll let us." She winks. "You know. Can't have a distracted commander."

Shepard gives her that smile again. "Loud and clear."

After they leave Omega, Miranda begins to regret allowing personal stops to stay off the record. She pays her respects to the Justicar - it had gotten around, in the way it usually does on a small ship, that the mark she had been chasing had been her own daughter. 

She almost hopes Shepard misses a meeting or report deadline to justify demanding an explanation of one or both of them. Yet, they simply recover. They leave their quarters, perform their duties, and unflinchingly assist the turian and the assassin with their own personal dramas at the Citadel. But they don't stop by to chat. Not for a while.

When they do, they have another treat for her they rooted out from somewhere on the Citadel, but so does Miranda. The commander takes one tired look at the bottle in her hands and gives her a nod.

They're only a few glasses in when they get on about family again. 

"Nothing worse," Shepard says to themself. 

Oriana's smiling face is too fresh in her mind, and her tongue is looser than it should be, so Miranda doesn't think when she asks them why.

Shepard frowns at her, as if it's obvious. "Can you imagine it? What a gag. A brother. A sister or a son or a father. Shit, they sent a whole collector ship for Ash, and we haven't spoken in years, probably won't again for...well."

Miranda can't hope to clock just how quickly the mention of a brother brought up images of them and that turian hamming it up at all hours like they'd been at it from birth. Jack, the troubled little sister. Massani sitting them down to wax on and on and on about some contract he'd told them about three times before only for them to dutifully listen anyway. Shit, releasing a newborn krogan from a suspended chamber and paying Goto to tutor him on the finer points of turian brutalism is on the fucking nose, here. There's no way they don't see it. 

She can think it all she likes, but she shouldn't be presumptuous.

"Do you," she asks instead, "want to...about Williams?"

This Shepard's ears are quicker to flush. "No. That's all...there's nothing. Was nothing." 

Without preamble, they ask her: 

"Have I been too friendly with the crew?"

Miranda valiantly hides her shock. "I- commander, I'm not the right-"

"You're my second. Who else would I ask?"

They say it as if it's obvious. As if, even after what Miranda had done, her thoughts carry weight. 

The commander's unorthodox amiability is a perpetual source of stress. Unpredictable. Brawls in cargo. Spontaneous ship-wide drink and draw nights hosted by that thief. Bribing navigators with drinks or paid shifts off should they calculate more efficient routes between systems, ditto engineers and engine efficiency. At no point in time can Miranda understand exactly what is happening on the ship before it radically changes. It would save her half a lifetime of nerves and frustration if they simply kept to themself no more and no less than would any other captain.

But no other ship runs this well. No other crew is halfway this dedicated. No other team is about to pass through the Omega-4 Relay. No one needs Shepard like this team, and she is starting to suspect the opposite as well.

"No, Shepard," she says, condemning herself to memorizing which elcor postmodernists should not be mentioned near Grunt this week.

"I wouldn't boil it down to just 'friendly', either. I don't know what I'd call it. But whatever it is, I think they-" She stops and corrects herself. "We might need it."

J

"Hey."

Jack scoffs and turns back to the dusty harlequin she'd stolen from Kasumi. 

"Sorry for bailing, before."

"Whatever."

"I-"

Jack sits up on her bed. "I'm not some kid you gotta babysit. You're a commander, you got a job and shit. I'm just here til you need someone roughed up. Don't get cute."

"She did something to me. Morinth."

Jack is tempted to tell them to fuck off, but the boss never talks like this. About themself.

"I didn't realize how long I'd been up there, when we came back. I'd come to at my desk, wonder where the last three hours had gone, and do it all again in three more, and three more after. Like my own brain was-"

"Locking down," Jack says.

"Yeah. Kills me; I can get blasted into space, shot point blank, hurled off my feet. But a few words, some - barely - any touching, and..."

Jack's foot had started bouncing.

"I couldn't say no," Shepard says. "I don't remember the last time I wanted to say no, and couldn't."

"As a kid."

"Not even. Not on Earth. Not in the cracks between those shining cities in the ads and vids."

Jack leans forward. "Your parents...?"

"I don't r- no. No one."

"So that asari bitch, she just...made you wanna fuck her with her weird eyes or-"

"Want her. Want to be consumed by her. Want to..."

Shepard scoffs.

"It's such a stupid thing to even get hung up about," they say.

"Then you shouldn't give a shit."

"That's the worst part. For a few seconds, it felt incredible. I wanted it. And then..."

"You didn't."

"Right. I nearly attacked Samara when she made it. Had to force myself to remember that it wasn't real. Even if, for a few minutes...mind control or not-"

"It was."

The engine shudders briefly before returning to its usual rhythmic hum.

"Yeah." 

Shepard looks different. Lighter, or something. They look away. "Sorry, this is-"

"It's fine."

"I should-"

"Shepard-" 

Jack almost blurts shit out. About escaping. Hopping ships. Doing things she shouldn't have with people who didn't give the first shit about her. About how long it took her to forget. Instead, she throws them a datapad with the Cerberus intel they had Lawson declassify.

"Let's blow something the fuck up."

T

Thane is asked to assist Shepard and the professor on Tuchanka. They run into Blood Pack mercs. Easy enough to deal with. Shepard gives him and the professor carte blanche, so he uses the opportunity to practice riskier maneuvers. He slips farther behind their lines than usual before turning around and weaving his way back one concussed head or melted visor at a time, granting openings for Shepard and the professor to crack open.

He must be getting carried away. He feels Shepard's eyes on him, yet they do not order him to stop. A few times, they simply stand and watch him work, their fair share of krogan groaning at their feet.

The professor passes ahead of them as their combined biotics send a Vorcha whistling off a ruined stone bridge. "Hm. Fortunate that both are eager to show off. May even get to Maelon in time."

They arrive at the fortified base and witness the work of the professor's former pupil. Shepard passes each console and corpse and listens to the professor's increasingly troubled observations with a mute solemnity. Their head begins to hang. Their steps fall heavier, slower. Guilt like an iron chain hangs all but visibly around their neck. The krogan had their answer, their hope, at Virmire, and Shepard, as they tell it, destroyed it. 

It was a hope offered by Reapers, but that asterisk seems to have faded with time. What remains is a facility filled with krogan volunteering for horrific procedures in the name of saving their people from extinction. He is no better prepared to understand the depths of their generational trauma than Shepard, but the commander has the unfortunate distinction of having had no choice but to meddle in it once before. 

He is relieved of duty when they return, but he lingers on the surface. The air here is irradiated and choked with dust and claws at his skin like a living, howling thing, but he has never breathed so deeply and so easily.

The rumors return before Shepard does. The newest member of clan Urdnot has not only passed his rite, but bested a thresher maw. Akuze rings through his head as if it were his own memory. He watches Shepard carefully when they return, leaving Jack and Grunt to look around or wrap up any business before they depart from the planet.

Shepard returns to the shuttle pad alone, paces, sits, rises to pace again. Thane glances sunlight off his pistol at Shepard's restless feet, catches their attention, and lowers himself from his perch overlooking the settlement to one that Shepard - bloodied from end to end and almost successfully hiding a limp - can reach.

This lower one overlooks a great deal of the settlement still, and much of the wasteland beyond. Shepard groans to a seat next to him. Dust has already blotted any thresher and varren blood that hasn't dried and cracked beneath the insufferable Tuchankan sun.

They sit in silence. It is not silent around them, but they are close enough for him to hear the rattle in their breath. The same air he is indulging in is tearing holes in their lungs. 

He reaches for the button that seals their helmet. Their hand rises and folds over his own. 

"Pointless. It's cracked," they rasp.

Only when their hand is on his does he appreciate the severity of its shudder. He raises his other and stills it between them. 

"Shit, if Garrus knew I got the jitters..."

"He would be kind and understanding?" he says with no little irony. 

"Yeah. After I pound him for wiggling his talons at me."

"Surely we can find another thresher for him to wiggle at."

They laugh, but just as quickly fall silent. They look out over the ruined wastes at nothing in particular. They are more troubled than usual, thresher or no. 

"May I distract you?"

Their jaw works. "Yeah. Yeah, that'd be..." They don't finish.

He concentrates on a memory, something light and harmless. They ask him to recall something fairly often. He's traveled far and collected his share of sweeping deserts, perilous tundras, deafening jungles, and everything in between. Sometimes, he'd come back to himself and catch Shepard before they realize he's finished, catch them as their eyes drift, unguarded, finding amusement or solace or something else entirely in visions he'd never thought to appreciate before.

"Thane."

This is not one of those times. They have that look again. A miserable, hunted look. This time, they are not hiding it from him.

"I can't remember. Things. From before."

They say it so lightly that he does not appreciate the meaning of it at first. When he does, the weight of the confession sucks the air out of his lungs. "Nothing?"

"The beacon stuck. Sovereign. Bit of Saren. But not the Earth kids I slummed with. Not Alliance. Not...Akuze, not old Normandy."

“Has Ms. Lawson-“

“She can’t know this. No one should.”

Except him. "You hide it expertly," he says instead.

"Since I woke, I've been stitching together what I can read or watch about them - me - from bios and docs. Fuck. I couldn't recognize my own face."

"But they don't sit right," they say breathlessly, rushing as if the words will vanish if they lingered in their throat. "Like they belong to someone else. Everything, everyone, since I woke has been so vibrant, so much more real. I woke up once on the table, you know? First thing I ever saw in this life was Miranda. Her eyes on me. Her hand on mine. How often does a person remember the first thing they ever see?" 

"Surely your first memory is more pleasant than any of ours."

They laugh. It forces its way out of them.

"There is... _something_ knocking around in there," they say, brow knitting in concentration. "Feelings. Impressions with no context, no home. Images like a stranger's photos. Old hungers so violent I'd forget I just ate. They're all clanging around up there til I can slot them in where they might belong. This clot of misery must be from Akuze. That awe must be from Ilos and Vigil. There are so many.”

"I hope it doesn't look like I play favorites," they say. "But some of the crew help me connect them more than others. Garrus, Tali..."

"Jack...your Earth days."

“That obvious? Yeah. Miranda, too, but I still can't figure how. Maybe...shit, I don't know.”

He sighs sharply as everything slots into place. "Today...the Virmire labs. The thresher on Akuze-"

"Not the way I wanted to remember those."

A varren sniffs around nearby, clambering over the ruined stone. Shepard clicks their tongue until it draws near, and rubs its belly. It laps at a streak of thresher blood on their shinguard and stalks away.

He doesn't ask the obvious question. Shepard does him the favor.

"Do you know who you remind me of?"

"No," he says truthfully. To his knowledge, Shepard knew few drell, if any, in their past life. Maybe he reminds them of a merc or assassin they once knew. Someone with a temperament or philosophy not unlike his own. Maybe it is simpler than that. The color of his skin. The sound of his voice. 

Distant artillery thunders in time with his blood. 

"Petty gifts..."

He should not have been able to place those words so quickly, but he does. They were his words. He had lamented, while they pursued Kolyat, how little he'd done for the children in the Citadel vents who sought his trifles in exchange for information.

He had not seen their face as he'd said it, but their steps had slowed. By the time he'd noticed and turned, they were back at his side, and he paid it no more mind.

"Shepard?"

"I think I knew someone like you. On Earth. A few, maybe. Watched and shadowed for them, for...for food or some shiny thing I could barter."

Shepard rests their weary head on his shoulder.

"They weren't petty to me."


	8. Chapter 8

T 

The crew receives a few photos from Kasumi during her and Shepard's brief outing. Stealthy shots of the commander in an alarmingly well-cut dress suit. He admires them for what he hopes is an appropriate amount of time before trying to meditate for several hours without success.

That night, he receives a second message from Kasumi, and reads it off his omni-tool.

_This one's just for you. If I'm right, you're welcome. If not (unlikely), it's kind of a killer shot anyway._

He sits up from his bed. It is a shot of Shepard standing over a pair of mercenaries they had presumably just incapacitated, this one taken from the back. 

They are reloading their pistol in the shot, just out of view, but he is more interested in what is. They had abandoned their jacket in the altercation, and all that remains is a white shirt clinging to their back and rolled up at the sleeves, all of it stretching over sweeping cords of muscle painted red by the setting sun. 

He switches it off, but not before the image is seared into his mind and promises to remain. He writes a curt thanks to Ms. Goto for the thought but insists that he should not see images the commander does not want seen. He receives a reply moments later.

_Oh, I know. This was one of the pics they okay'd. You're just the only one who has it. O : )_

J

Jack slams a laughing Shepard to the mat for the second time in under a minute.

"What happened to no shockwaves?" they manage to get out.

Jack growls at them, at herself, at nothing in particular. "Instinct, okay?"

"Yeah?" Shepard rises and sweeps her feet from under her. Jack gets back on her feet with a swell of biotics, catches the first unmistakable signs of Shepard beginning to charge, and raises her arms in protest. 

"Uh-uh, I said no charging. You'll mess up my hair," she says as cargo lights bounce off her meticulously shaved head.

Shepard whips the already-gathered energy into a mat and sends it flying to the opposite end of the hold. "And if your enemy charges?"

"No one charges like you, asshole."

"Fine, no biotics at all."

Jack rolls her eyes.

"Afraid?"

T

They haven't had a chance to talk since Tuchanka. Shepard has been increasingly sharp and restless since then, but few wouldn't be on route to a derelict Reaper. There is a familiar pounding from the hold again. 

He rearranges his things. He writes to his son. Takes apart his rifle. Tries to meditate. He has spent so much of his life alone that he is unprepared for the pull of another. The compulsion is at once formless and unstoppable. Without reason, yet beyond question. He ignores the sounds, until he can't. 

He catches the end of their match from the windows at the engineering deck. Jack used to fight like a cornered varren, and though her style is still thoroughly underhanded, there is a rhythm to it now, a tempo to her movements that promise endurance far past the explosive first blow and quick escape she has relied on for so long.

The commander mimics her, forcing her to counter her own movements as Shepard learns her counters and continues the cycle until one of them slips. 

He rarely sees Shepard in action without armor, rarer still without blinding biotic tendrils trailing their every limb. They duck and weave effortlessly, skin glowing with exertion. 

Jack throws them over her head and onto the mat. She whoops and lands a resounding slap on the commander's rear as they stand. They fall to the mat once more as if mortally wounded. 

There is an exchange between them that he can't hear, and shouldn't. He pulls away from the glass. 

Not for the first time, he considers their closeness with Jack. Maybe they are...no. Though there is no reason they shouldn't be. He and Shepard, their connection is cerebral, if not a touch spiritual. Anything else is simply an appreciation of form and function. 

Jack leaves. Shepard stays, stretches. Thane descends from engineering and slips into the hold. He moves quietly, doesn't want to startle them as they rise with their back to him.

"Tapping in?" they ask.

Suddenly, a burst of biotics hurtles his way. He dodges, looks back, and Shepard is gone. He senses a disturbance on his right and dodges a second burst only to nearly back into a leg sweeping his own from under him.

He leaps over it and uses his airborne momentum to flip over their attempted takedown. He attempts to put distance between them in the single second he's bought himself, only for Shepard to roll into his space, giving him little room to maneuver, barely any to think. His body simply moves, and they with him. 

They do not move like Jack anymore but like themself again - an extension of the solid ground as he is of the air. It is impossible to knock them off their feet, yet they have as much trouble predicting his airborne feints.

Their fingers graze his side, but even so little is enough to slow his momentum. Air is slammed out his lungs as he is reunited with solid ground between their thighs, and pinned to the mat with their full weight. There was no breaking their hold once they had caught him. He was as useful as a dove in a viper's maw. 

They pant above him as he catches his own stolen breath. Heat radiates off their body and his own into the surrounding chill. Sweat pools in the hollow of their throat and disappears down their shirt. When they sense no resistance from him, they roll off and sit beside him. He turns to them but remains on his back.

"Thanks for not snapping my neck," they say.

"Likewise."

Their eyes linger on his neck. He passes a hand over the ridges, encouraging the rigid spines to retract, and smoothing the upset folds of his throat.

"You alright?"

"Fine. Automatic reaction to, well."

"First I've seen it."

"Not often I dance with death."

They give him a smug grin and open their mouth a few times before thinking better of it.

"Something on your mind?"

"Something," they say, a hand rising to trace the lines of his throat. Watching his eyes first, waiting for any hint of discomfort, before sinking to admire the delicate skin beneath their hand. 

They block out one of the cargo lights, and it inflames their hair red and gold. A flame to all the worlds' moths.

He takes their hand and moves it aside.

"I have months, Shepard" he says.

"So do I."

He frowns. "The Collectors-"

"They're not the real prey." 

He exhales sharply, incredulously. "I see. No easy retirement in your future."

A single thought rises and bobs along the current of his conscious mind as he closes his eyes, as their lips meet his throat, his jaw. They call the Reapers prey.

G

Shepard predicts more tech-based obstacles than anything else on a derelict Reaper, so he and Tali have the privilege of following them inside the thing to look for their ticket to the Omega Relay.

He cant help but remember a conversation they once had when a geth shows up - accessorizing with a piece of Shepard's old armor - and says their name.

T

Shepard visits some time after they return with the IFF, and tells him about the Ardat-Yakshi. They admit that Jack, of all people, understood in a way few else would. Maybe it takes someone like her. She set them right, whatever that means. Shepard doesn't elaborate.

They scoff and throw an arm around the back of their chair. "Then plants a big wet one on me when I don't expect it. To ' _cleanse my palette_ ', she said. God, only Jack."

He nods along, thinking nothing shows on his face. Shepard's slow grin suggests otherwise.

"Thane...?"

They rise from their seat and approach him with a leisurely prowl. 

"Are you-" they start, clearly enjoying themselves. "No."

He shifts in his seat as they approach him, crowd him. What a childish turn. "I am not-"

"Jealous," they say, "of me?"

"I'm- what?"

"I had no idea," they said guiltily. "All this time, I stood between you and Jack."

He laughs nervously. "No, that is not-"

"Don't you worry," they insist, turning to leave as he struggles to temper his rising panic. "I'll make it right. Tell her it's not me she wants, it's-"

He rushes forward, catches them by their shoulders and turns them swiftly and soundlessly against the wall.

"I strongly insist you do not."

Their hands rise to wrap pointedly around his wrists. "I am your commander."

"And I," he whispers in their ear and earns a satisfying shudder, "am your mutinous crew."

They slip out of his hold and make a go for the door. He summons a biotic tendril to lash around their middle and pull. They resist only to suddenly let go, use the momentum to surge forward, bend low to the floor, and sweep at his feet. He leaps out of the way and, taking a cue from their own style, rushes into them, soundlessly tears them off their feet and onto the biotic-dampened table. 

They rise to a seat with a breathy laugh. He remains between their legs to block their way. They are barely a breath apart. 

"Your demands?" they ask.

"I need assurances, commander, that-"

He feels their hands mold to his waist and trail to his hips. 

"-that I will not be receiving a visit from-"

Their eyes are on his mouth. Their thumbs passes over hipbone.

He swallows and answers with his own suggestions passing languidly over their thighs. "-a certain human biotic."

They lean back, and he nearly shivers at the chill. "I'm sorry you feel that way."

He realizes his error through the haze in his head, the rush of blood in his ears and elsewhere. "An exception stands for one specific human biotic."

"I see," Shepard says wistfully, not moving closer nor away and oblivious to how tightly, painfully wound he is around their every word, every breath. He all but trembles at their proximity, their teasing, their heat. "I don't blame you," they say. "That Miranda sure is-"

He sighs miserably and rests his head on their shoulder. He feels them shudder with laughter as their hands cradle his face. Their warm lips press at his brow, to his cheek, to - as he rises - nothing. They pull back. Their eyes become hard.

"If I order you to stay behind?"

He doesn't think. "I will."

"If I order you to die?"

"I will." 


	9. Chapter 9

G

"Listen," Garrus starts, locking the door to Kasumi's room behind him, "took a while but I've got a line on that sculptor like you wanted, just sent it to your-"

Kasumi hums approvingly from behind the bar. Tali turns, too. 

Garrus steps back. "I'll come back la-"

"Oh, do stay," Tali says, crossing her arms and leaning on the bar. "We've been discussing the results of your little commission."

Garrus stares at her, then at Kasumi. 

"You humans have a really liberal definition of confidentiality."

Kasumi shrugs. "Tali's good people. No one else knows. Long story short: All clear. In addition, I approve."

"I don't," Tali sighs. "The nerve of stealing Shepard right out from under me." 

Garrus frowns. "Huh? So there's..."

"Everything checks out, man," Kasumi says. "No side-piece, no string of jilted exes-"

"Come on, he always has a side-piece."

Kasumi's eyes widen. "He- what?"

"The pistol? In his jacket?"

Kasumi gapes. "That's not what I-"

"So, no handler, no clandestine contract?"

Tali's drink slips out of her hand and shatters. 

"Is that why you...oh, Keelah."

Garrus blinks at her. "I-"

"Garrus," Kasumi manages to get out in between hysterics, "my guy-"

Tali shakes her head. "I cannot believe you thought..."

"Right, I'm leaving."

"Wait." Kasumi holds up a hand and throws up a recording from her omnitool. He watches it and shrugs. "They're just talking."

Kasumi scoffs and pulls up another, watching him expectantly. 

"Shepard...sizes him up? When he's not looking?"

Kasumi's jaw hangs as she looks to Tali, who shakes her head, reaches toward her omnitool and selects another recording. "Turians, Kasumi," she sighs. "They understand one thing." 

He prepares to protest whatever it is she means as she pulls up footage of the two sparring. In his defense, the match hasn't ended before he finally, mortified, understands. He sweeps the glass from the fallen drink.

M

They are en route to the relay. Shepard briefs the team, then meets Miranda in her office alone.

“What’s our pal TIM got you up to behind my back?”

She thinks, for a moment, that she misheard. "Nothing,” she finally says, heart pounding. “To ensure the destruction of the Collectors. You know this, it’s always been this."

"If I give you an order that contradicts him?"

"Commander, it..."

"Depends."

"No, I- it's impossible to say, I can't..."

"Can I expect you to follow orders unconditionally?"

Miranda swallows hard. "I..."

"I understand," Shepard says, and leaves.

T

They are hurtling toward the relay. In a few hours, they will be either victorious or dead, or both. 

He cannot center his breathing. He cannot stand still. After an hour of this, his body takes him elsewhere.

He finds Shepard pacing in their cabin like something caged. Tearing holes in the floor. They turn sharply when the door opens, cabin lights dimmed, though he had sent word he was coming. They come to greet him, meet him with open arms.

He tears away and tries to talk. To understand the whirlwind in his gut. He should be at peace. He was, before. Before every contract. On every perch, in every hidden corner or well of shadow. But not anymore. For the first time in a long time, he knows terror.

"Easier when you're 'asleep', isn't it?" Shepard says.

"Easy. And meaningless," he says. He takes a seat on the divan at their insistence. "No one, nothing, to disappoint, to be used against you. But after a time..."

"Your eyes start to close," they say distantly. "You give your body to the Compact, to clients." Lower, they add, "Cerberus. Alliance."

He looks up, but they look away. It was one thing to suspect, to weave from fragments and insinuations. It is another to hear it aloud. He rises, takes a step toward them. "You understand it far better than you let on."

"Never had the words for it. And then, suddenly, you did," they say, beginning to pace again. "Ignored it for a while. We couldn't have been more different. Earth, Khaje. Compact, Alliance."

"But?"

"But somehow, you could describe what I did after Akuze, Virmire. Shut my eyes. Left my body."

"And the beacon?"

"Zaps me awake in its own way. Like an electric shock.”

"Pain and fear."

"Right. Not the promise of seeing something or someone again. A sister or a son. A..." They glance his way. 

They suddenly stop pacing and stand before him. 

"Terrified? Good. You're wide awake."

He pulls them to him, strokes their cheek with his thumb. "And you?" he asks. They breathe once, haltingly, against his neck before nodding against him, pressing their lips to the folds at his throat and tracing the rigid swell of its outer ridge. He cards through their hair, pulls, and kisses them, opens them until their shoulders sink, until their eyes drift shut.

He does not know when his knees hit the divan, when he is pushed to a seat, when Shepard slips into his lap and opens him in turn, kisses him thoughtless and moves their hips until his hands on their thighs are less suggestion than demand. For exactly what, he hasn't the mind to think. Only more. More of this, more of them.

At some point, they have freed him of coat and shirt and push him flat on his back. Their lips move over his jaw and his throat and linger over his chest, passing over his scales one way and another and laughing at themself for nicking their tongue when they moved against the grain. He slips under their shirt and catches the little sounds they make as he passes his hands - rougher than theirs, though not as calloused - over a canvas of mottled scars and impenetrable muscle.

Shepard moves again, sees the soft crimson layered over his serratus and passes their lips over the sensitive folds on one side as their hand caresses the other before he even thinks to worry if this is too strange for them, too foreign. He groans at their touch and grabs hard at their hair as the sensitive folds fanning out from behind his arms and under his chest begin to unfold. 

He rises on his elbows as Shepard watches them as if hypnotized. He worries again that this is too much, too different, but they watch the emerging iridescent blues and purples and reds so intensely, and trace their arcs down the length of his obliques with such uncommon care, that his relieved sigh is taken for something else.

They look up. "Are you-"

"Good." He hooks a finger under the waistband of their pants and lets it snap back.

They retaliate with a tug on one of the folds that excites him more than it should. "Giving asari showgirls a run for their money."

"Suggesting a career change?" he asks before they find his mouth again, kiss him mindless again, and he almost doesn't feel the shift above him, hear the slide of fabric. They take his hand and invite him to feel how eager they are for him.

He gives himself to them, loses himself in the demanding, blinding burn of them. When their eyes begin to wander, when their limbs struggle to hold them and their skin flushes, succumbing at last to the stinging, swirling kaleidescopics promised them by the venom in his skin, he rises and carries them to the bed. 

"Enjoying the show?" he teases. 

A flicker of biotic energy catches his eye. As Shepard's head meets the pillow, he finds their other hand outstretched. Something clatters fitfully at their desk before hurtling into that hand. A hypo. 

"Five stars," they say airily, twitching at the lightest touch as their skin flares. They press the antidote into his hand. 

He feeds it into their arm and comforts them as they come down, pressing feather-light kisses to their neck, their shoulder. Soon, he simply looks, enjoys the sight of them in their own private rapture.

His touch elicits fewer hisses now than pleased hums. Their own hands grow harder on him again, more demanding, but they are not yet entirely free of the venom's gifts. The sting, as he understands, mellows into a gentle hum that heightens everything. Sound. Taste. Touch.

He moves lower once their arching back and lingering sighs convince him that they have reached this brief twilight again, stops between their thighs, and does not leave until every muscle in their body snaps taut and their anchoring hold on his hands bruises, until their voice breaks on his name. 

G

The battered ship groans around them as they plot a path into the collector base. Miranda suggests herself as diversion team leader. She has not finished speaking before Shepard’s eyes are on him.

M

The colossal Reaper embryo hurtles into the abyss as her boss turns from his mutinous experiment to his best agent. 

“Miranda, stop them,” he demands as Shepard and Garrus overload the base systems, as they deny him his beloved Reaper corpse. 

Few other Cerberus operations tolerate non-humans unless they come in chains or body bags. No other cell has been anywhere near as successful, as efficient, as compassionate, as Shepard's Normandy. The Alliance does not have the nerve to do what needs doing. But Cerberus would not have accompanied a krogan on his rite. Earned the respect of the Migrant Fleet. Activated and all but befriended a geth soldier who would invite them to rewrite his own people. Cerberus would not have helped her find Oriana. 

“I don’t think I will," she says. For the first time, Miranda believes in a future between tepid bureaucracy and needless cruelty. 

"Consider this my resignation.”

G

He comes to as the collector ship crumbles around them. Everything happens faster than he can understand it. Shepard is hauling him to his feet. The collector base shatters and paints open space white and orange and red. Shepard, bloodied and bruised and singed, ends their last amicable call with The Illusive Man. The ship is damaged, repairing, repaired. Drinks. Food. Cheers.

The Alpha relay, annihilated.

J

Shepard tells her to beat it. Tells everyone, one by one. They're turning themself in so Alliance pigs can waste the months of breathing space Shepard handed them by knocking out that Reaper highway with their dumbass questions. She doesn't say shit at first. It takes a hot second for it all to sink in, the fuckery of it.

Jack pounds on the cabin door. 

EDI interrupts. "Commander Shepard is currently-"

"Let me in, crone," Jack snaps at the AI. She gives the door another round of punishment before it slides open.

She bounds in as Shepard rises up the stairs to meet her. 

"Listen up. Walk in, tell them whatever the fuck, then bail. I slip out, knock out the station chief when you show, unclamp the ship, and off we fucking go. Any questions?"

She notices Lawson only when she rises from the couch on the lower level. "No use, Jack. I've tried."

"What'd you suggest, flashing your-"

"I've been thinking," Shepard interrupts. "Approaches aside, you two are actually kinda-"

"Don’t you say another word," Miranda snaps as Jack says "Oh, fuck off." 

"No, really-"

Both turn to leave. Jack makes it to the elevator first.

G

A skeleton crew remains as engineers and navigators sure to be unwelcome by the Alliance make their leave. 

Garrus tries to talk them out of it. Strap him to a canon and fire him into Tuchanka, but he cannot understand the logic of buying them these precious months if all Shepard does with them is sit behind bars.

"You know I'm poison til I get this Cerberus human-supremacist stink off me," they say.

"But you were never-"

"They don't know that. I need to tell them everything. Alliance. Council. We need them. Just once, I gotta play ball."

He growls. If they had played ball, he would still be on desk duty and Shepard would have been sent to hunt petty fugitives or tax evaders while Sovereign waltzed right into the Citadel. 

"Don't wait for me. You know what you've seen," Shepard says. "Go home and make them believe."

T

It will be a straight line to Alliance space once the Normandy leaves Omega. The field team has now fully departed minus Vakarian, who is undoubtedly leaving an unpleasant surprise in the forward battery for Alliance techs to find. Or standing sentinel until Thane departs. Old habits.

Thane finds Shepard in a familiar spot. Legs dangle over the abyss. Afterlife's bass rumbles through their chests. 

He sits beside them on the stone barrier. "If we ever meet again-"

"We will."

"I will be of no use to you-"

"You will."

"-in body. But I pray, in spirit-" 

He is reminded of something. 

"Prey," he says. "You once called Reapers prey."

"They are," they say, as if colossal godlike monstrosities from beyond the known galaxy couldn't be anything else. 

"Then, siha, may Amonkira bless your hunt."


End file.
